The transaction is expected to be completed in the next three months, Ahmedabad-based Intas said in a statement on Wednesday.

The acquisition will expand Intas’s UK manufacturing presence with the addition of the Barnstaple site in North Devon and more than doubles Intas’s pan-European operations, with revenues exceeding $500 million, the company said. The Barnstaple plant will become the company’s fourth UK site.

The deal will also increase Intas’s access to UK and Irish retail and hospital markets.

“This transaction represents a unique opportunity for Intas to build scale in the UK and Ireland—adding to our market-leading hospital franchise—and creates a strong platform for further European expansion," said Binish Chudgar, vice-chairman and managing director of Intas.

“We have a clear plan for the continuation and development of the Barnstaple site and the Actavis UK and Ireland teams," he added.

Moelis and Co. and Rothschild & Co. were the financial advisers to Intas.

The transaction is part of the European Commission’s (EC) anti-trust divestiture requirements arising from Teva’s acquisition of Actavis Generics.

Teva agreed in July 2015 to purchase Allergan’s generics unit for $40.5 billion in cash and stock, a deal that made Teva the largest manufacturer of generic drugs in the world. Since then Teva has been on a divestment spree to address antitrust concerns.

In December, Reuters reported that Teva is in the process of selling its assets in the US, Europe and the Middle East.

On 29 July, Mint reported that Cipla Ltd, India’s fifth largest drug maker, had acquired a portfolio of three products from Teva in the US. Aurobindo Pharma Ltd was also part of the 11 firms that agreed to acquire 79 existing and future drugs from Teva.

In June Dr. Reddy’s Laboratories Ltd and Cadila Healthcare Ltd (Zydus Cadila) announced that they will buy products divested by Teva in the US.

Intas’s acquisition of Teva’s UK assets puts it in the big league of large overseas acquisitions by Indian pharma firms. It is also the biggest outbound M&A (merger and acquisition) transaction in the pharma space so far in 2016, according to data from Venture Intelligence.

Last year, Lupin Ltd acquired New Jersey-based Gavis Pharmaceuticals Llc and its affiliate Novel Laboratories Inc. for $880 million (around Rs5,600 crore) in a bid to expand its presence in the US generics market. Also in 2015, Cipla Ltd acquired two US-based companies, InvaGen Pharmaceuticals Inc. and Exelan Pharmaceuticals Inc., for $550 million, to strengthen its presence in the world’s largest drug market.

According to Sujay Shetty, leader (pharma life sciences) at PwC India, the UK market being a highly competitive one, acquiring established brands to increase market penetration is a strategy that serves Indian generic companies well.

“UK is a large generic market and one of the top two generics market in Europe. While there is strong potential for growth in the market, it is a highly competitive market. For any Indian generic drug maker that is looking to increase its market share in the UK, it makes sense to go for brands which are already well entrenched in the market," Shetty said.

Intas is backed by private equity firms Temasek and ChrysCapital.

In 2014, Singapore’s investment firm Temasek Holdings Pte Ltd acquired a 10.16% equity stake in the pharma firm by way of a secondary purchase of shares from private equity investor ChrysCapital for around Rs900 crore.

ChrysCapital, the first institutional investor in the company, continues to hold a little over 6% stake in the firm.

Intas is among the top 10 Indian pharmaceutical companies and the largest privately held pharmaceutical company in India, with annual turnover in excess of $1 billion, of which 60% comes from international operations.

The group has an extensive geographic footprint with a presence in 70 countries worldwide and more than 80% of export revenue coming from the US, UK and EU.

Intas operates over 10 manufacturing facilities worldwide. The group has capabilities to produce a wide variety of dosage forms, including solid orals, liquids, lyophilized sterile preparations, creams, drops and injectables.

Intas employs 12,000 people globally with more than 400 located in Europe. The company employs over 800 scientists, spends approximately 6% of sales on R&D per annum and has been granted 27 international patents.